Vista Skatepark to Re-Open After Robbery

After some idiots robbed the attendant at the new vista skatepark the park is scheduled to re open. I have attached the SD Union Tribune article so you can read all about it.

New skate parks — closed by robbery — to reopen saturday

Facilities will now close at dusk; Vista sending message

By Teri Figueroa

VISTA

Vista wants to send a message. Even though the electricity to power security lights was turned on earlier this week, the city won’t reopen its brand-new skate parks until Saturday, a week after a city staffer locking one up for the night was robbed.

The employee was not harmed, but the Sept. 22 incident led the city to rethink its initial plan to keep the park open after dark. It also led a local skater to create a GoFundMe crowdsourcing campaign to both raise money to “undo” the robbery and to set a positive vibe.

The two sister parks on North Santa Fe Avenue had officially opened — with a bit of fanfare — just six days before the theft. A $3 million project, the parks are a big deal in Vista, which had gone nine years without one.

Even though the electricity was not turned on in time for the ribbon-cutting, the parks opened anyway, with a plan to lock them up at dusk for the time being. Now, even though the power is on, the parks will remain locked until Saturday to send a statement that “we will not tolerate criminal activity,” city spokeswoman Andrea McCullough said.

“We understand at this point that it was a few people who did this and it’s not reflective of most of those who use the skate parks,” McCullough said. “However, we did want to close for a week to send a message that we take this seriously.”

The theft led to another change: Even with the lights now on, the parks will still continue to close at dusk. The initial idea was to keep them open until 9 p.m. Dimmed lights will be on after hours — not enough light to skate by, but enough for deputies to see into the parks after dark. The power also allows the city to activate automatic door locks at closing time.

According to authorities, the theft happened after the employee had gone to lock up the parks for the night and found about 15 people still there. As he shooed them all out, two of them hopped into his city-owned truck and rifled through it while a third man blocked the staffer’s path to the vehicle. The thieves got away with about $1,000 of goods, including two cellphones.

The theft angered and frustrated a lot of people in Vista’s skating community, said Vista resident Alec Beck, among those who had wanted a city skate park. The 30-year-old created the GoFundMe page earlier this week to help cover the victim’s losses, and also to hit the reset button.

“The majority of us really appreciate the opportunity to have a skate park to go skate and create self-directed goals and learn and join together as community — especially for young kids,” he said.

The GoFundMe campaign, he said, is about “setting the tone, and reminding the city who this was built for.”